Just a bit proud of myself - how to get unblack listed :)

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5 years ago

Woohoo... my site is up and running. I am having bubbly before lunch... oooh naughty.

You may wonder why on Earth I am celebrating, because using the WA learning modules it's pretty straight forward to get your domain set up and out there, but... I ran into just a little snag. As soon as I had transferred my free domain to my purchased domain... i got a 'suspicious website' red flag when I plugged my new webaddress inot Google Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge... Opera seemed happy though.

You can imagine my panic when Google blacklisted my site... hands up who doesn't use Google as their search engine... right... nearly everyone uses it so having my site blacklisted on Gooogle is a big deal.

I immediatley sent off a message to support and a few minutes later, the answer arrived. It seemed pretty straight forward... just fill out a form in Google Webmaster Tools and do this for McAfee and you should be un-blacklisted.

First of all, when I saw McAfee I had a major 'Oh my God how am I going to to this?' moment. But then I just started working on it... kept asking questions and in the end I was able to send of a review request to McAfee.

Then it cam to Google... OMG.. I was told it would be easier. But for me it was not. First I needed to get my sites, yes both http:// and https:// versions of my domain verified in Google. Another message to support... and following their instructions in no time were my sites verified.

I made sure my SSL was activated as well... then send Google a message that all is fixed and please take me off the black list. Google wasn't so kind as to tell me they've received my request, so I sent another one. Just in case.

During all that I also got more familiar with the Google webmaster console, now called Google Search Console... and it looks like that will be one of the tools needed to monitor my WA website. I am sure there will be training about that somewhere in the modules. But... I am a very click happy persone so I had a poke around Google Search Console already and today... when I did some more exploring I found out that my site has been removed from the black list ... Hooray :D

Nothing standing in the way now to get those Google rankings :) :)

And yes... I am proud I was able to work my way thought that little technical challenge and I am very grateful to support and their quick responses.

So my advise:

Don't panick if you get black listed - it's probably a false positive
Contact Support asap and they will help you with the steps to request to be taking of that horrid list
Be patient... it takes a few days to be let out of cyber jail
Crack a bubbly when you are because nothing is stopping you now... unless you stop yourself

I can hear you asking... so what did you do? So here is the message I got sent from support: got:

Please check Google Webmaster Console* and submit the request of removal of the website from blacklist.

Please check https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/yourwebsite.com

Also, follow the steps for McAfee:

To request a review of your site on the McAfee blacklist:

Visit the ticketing service for McAfee: https://www.trustedsource.org/?p=mcafee
Choose McAfee SiteAdvisor from the list.
Type in your URL and click Check URL.
Review the Reputation and Categorization for your site.
Enter details about the cleanup in the Optional Comment section.
Click Submit URL for Review

* Remember it's actually Google Search Console.

Cheers (beer is bubbly too :) )